WARNING - Tesco Marketplace 😕

egarobar

We have been receiving online groceries from Tesco for years, and usually they're OK. Suddenly they have introduced a lot of "marketplace" sellers, but they haven't made it clear that these work quite differently.

When you place an order for grocery items, you can check out, change your mind, and check out again, so long as you finalise the order before 23:45 the night before the delivery.

With marketplace items, as soon as you check out, the order is sent to the seller, and you can't change it - and you are not warned that this is going to happen. There's no way of cancelling it directly either.

Last night we had a marketplace item in the grocery basket by mistake, and didn't realise it was there - checked out, and the order was placed - in two parts. I immediately contacted the seller of the marketplace item, using their details from the tesco website, asking them to stop the order. They would have received the message first thing this morning, but just before 13:00 we were told that the item was despatched. They had sent an  earlier email at just before 08:00 telling us how to return the item, but that wasn't clear, as I had already asked them clearly NOT to send the item - they didn't SAY they were sending it anyway. Because they have sent it, we will be obliged to wait for it to arrive, then send it back to them, then wait for a refund. It's all very formal and sounds efficient, but it's a lot more complicated for us, including having to get to a place to post it, which is difficult for us; and in any case I think there should be a way to cancel directly from the tesco website, without having to get approval from the seller and go through this process.

By the way, the seller's email says: "one of our core values is caring about people; our team, our customers, our suppliers and our collective communities". I'm not convinced.

So, I want to warn everyone who buys anything from tesco marketplace to be absolutely sure you want it before you check out. I would also recommend you do it separately from any online grocery order, so you can be sure of what is going on. If you combine a grocery order and marketplace items, tesco will separate the order into two parts.

I will not be using tesco marketplace again.

MrsStepford

That's dreadful ! 

Alfrescodave

Just hand back the items you don't want, to the delivery driver  - simple

Any items that I have given back to the Tesco delivery drivery show up as a refund very quickly - sometimes within a matter of minutes

egarobar

Alfrescodave said:

Just hand back the items you don't want, to the delivery driver  - simple

Any items that I have given back to the Tesco delivery drivery show up as a refund very quickly - sometimes within a matter of minutes

That's
 not relevant to marketplace, sorry.

sheramber

 They would have received the message first thing this morning, but just before 13:00 we were told that the item was despatched

You assume somebody is sitting waiting to receive your email  and action it immediately.

It may have been in a queue of emails waiting to be dealt with.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

sheramber said:

 They would have received the message first thing this morning, but just before 13:00 we were told that the item was despatched

You assume somebody is sitting waiting to receive your email  and action it immediately.

It may have been in a queue of emails waiting to be dealt with.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/zone/grocery-terms-and-conditions#:~:text=The price of the items do not include delivery charge,are incorrectly priced or described.

You enter into a contract with the partner when you place an order for its products on Marketplace and when such order has been accepted by the partner. Your order has been accepted by the partner once Tesco issues a despatch email to you.

Looks like OP withdrew their offer before the contract was formed, anything else is the seller's problem. 

OP they should refund you within 14 days of your message, if they want the goods back they'll have to collect them, I'd complain to Tesco but you need to make it clear you withdrew your offer and a contract was not formed. 

forgotmyname

B&Q did the same so I stopped using them.  Shop with your wallet.

When shopping on the B&Q website and I want to pick it up right away I don't want to hunt through
thousands of items they do not sell themselves with extended delivery times.

When Play.com did the same years ago I stopped using them also.